Opus Judei, José María Escriba, Orion Publications, Santa Fé Bogotá, Columbia, 1994, 246Pp

1 Extracts (all are loose translations of a cross-section of this book) The book: Opus Judei, José María Escriba, Orion Publications, Santa fé Bogotá, Columbia, 1994, 246pp. Distributor: Editorial Solar Ltda., Carrera 9a, No.19-59, Of.402, Santa fé Bogotá, D.C., Colombia This book is in Castellana Spanish. Author using pen name to focus attention on the late José María Escrivá de Balaguer, founder of Opus Dei The book contains several hundred footnoted references & a bibliography of 25 books by 24 authors The Prologue of Opus Dei appears also to be by an anonymous person using the name, Alfonso Carlos de Borbón, a member of a Spanish monarchy. Three Chapter titles & their Subheadings, along with the Prologue Chapter I : The Secret Societies & Opus Dei 1 A Suspicion Is Confirmed 2 What Is a Secret Society? 3 The Hidden Secret & the Revealed Mystery 4 The Charismatic Leader 5 The Community of the Elect: Fellow Travelers & Initiates 6 The Ambition of Wealth & Power: Avarice Without Limit 7 Reception & Training of Members 8 Abuse & Coercion 9 Human (Psychological) Damage 10 Secret Societies & Religion: Defrauders of God 11 A Scandalous Usurpation 12 Totalitarianism & Fanaticism 13 Sex & Risk (Blackmail?) 14 Judas in Action 15 Quitting Opus Dei: Pursuit, Ruination, Civil Death Chapter II : The Hidden Life of Escrivá de Balaguer 1 The Lie Without Pity 2 Family Environment 3 Seminary & Adolescence 4 A Seer With a Great Vision: Divine Revelation 5 Infamous Tendencies 6 Escriva & Women 7 Escriva & the Seven Deadly Sins 8 Man With No Name. Delusions of Grandeur 9 Freemasonry 10 Death & Resurrection 11 Saint & Sign 12 The Scandal of a Beatification 2 Chapter III : The Hidden Judaism of Opus Dei 1 The Problem of Underground Judaism in Spain 2 Secular Infiltration of Underground Judaism in the Clergy 3 Jewish Roots of Escrivá de Balaguer 4 Kabalistic Symbolism of Opus Dei 5 Jewish Ghettos As Model for Opus Dei 6 Opus Dei & the Jewish Question 7 Finances of Opus Dei & International Judaism 8 Identity Between the Spirit of Opus Dei & the Jewish Soul 9 Jesuit Influences in Opus Dei 10 World Government, New World Order & Opus Dei Prologue (Foreword) In order to decipher the enigma of the most notorious false movement of our current times and to discover the secret of its surprisingly labyrinthine structure, it has been necessary for me to untangle, as it were, a knot enmeshed in a miswoven fabric. Appearances can be deceiving. Things are not what they seem to be. Ambiguity and confusion are the symptoms of the times in which we live. In Humanum Genus Leo XIII said (referring to Freemasonry) that to expose it was to conquer it. Let us shine a beam of light on the real Opus Dei, exploring its roots, examining its doctrines, and delving into the underground waters that irrigate the structure of this organization embedded in the very marrow of the Catholic Church. This is the objective of this book, to uncover the background and inner workings of an organization that enjoys a personal prelature of its own, approved by the Holy See (which is in the process of elevating its controversial founder to sainthood. History generally is narrated either in a superficial or an anecdotal way for any given event, usually not revealing the underlying reality. To gain a meaningful understanding requires a sense of order about background information. It is vital that all shroud of secrecy be removed and that we learn about the forces behind the scenes. When Opus Dei is unmasked, we find the history of a conspiracy where reality and fiction seem to combine into a perfect partnership. The author of this book attempts to probe and reveal generally concealed information about this powerful multinational organization. It is not a scandalous or sensational book. Controversial, perhaps. You may or may not be in agreement with its content. Indifference, neutrality and aloofness will not be possible once the book is read. It begins the work of opening a new and essentially unpublished field of investigation. The reading of this book is a must if one does not wish to remain unaware of a threat to the very salvation of souls. Ignorance cannot exempt from ravaging spiritual consequences. Alfonso Carlos de Borbón 3 A Suspicion Confirmed: Subheading 1, Chapter I No cult considers itself to be such.(1) Nevertheless, we are of a mind to make a definitive and categorical statement in connection with Opus Dei. It is one of the most powerful and mysterious cults in the history of the 20th century.(2) Its Raimundo Panikkar, one of the pioneers at the establishment of the initial nucleus and an important member of its founding fathers, and who assisted in writing the documents setting forth the mission of Opus Dei, says “what begun as a small charismatic group slowly changed, by force of circumstances and by the spirit of its founder, into what could be called, in sociological terms, a cult.”(3) We live immersed in a process of social crisis that has created a marketplace of strange beliefs. Cults proliferate, expand, infiltrate, mature, and execute their secret purposes, passing like smoke throughout the fabric of society, destroying and annihilating many for the lucrative benefit of a few. The warning was on the first page. The chapter headings did not leave any allowance for uncertainty. The publication that spread the information was a national one. The headline of the newspaper announced: “Members of Opus Dei are treated by cult deprogramming specialists in a Barcelona clinic.”(4) The content of that surprising news story was confirmed: an indeterminate number of young applicants and active members had been treated in Barcelona during the last few months by specialists in the mental deprogramming of cult members. The clinical treatments were applied at the request of their relatives who tried in this way to correct emotional disorders. The story added that the assisting specialists were provided by the Association for Youth and that the technical equipment was from the Center for Recovery, Re-Orientation and Assistance to Cult Victims (CROAS), both of which are commonly known to be deprogramming organizations that follow a process of informing the cult victims of the true beliefs and actions of the organizations to which they have belonged. The first clinical treatments by deprogrammers of Opus Dei members and followers were made in November, 1987. Approximately 20 families of members or followers of Opus Dei, from different parts of Spain, had gone to the Association for Youth, requesting information and assistance in order to “recover their children” or to obtain clinical treatment for them. Officials of the Association of Youth (to conclude the news story) said that the dogmatic attitudes of some of the members and followers of Opus Dei were similar to those belonging to harmful cults. The secrecy and the recruiting activities, or “apostolic activities,” were, in the opinion o f the Association for Youth, some of the most negative and harmful characteristics of the “personal prelature” of Opus Dei. The story noted that “at the First International Congress on the Harmful Effects of Cult Activity, held the previous November at Saint Cugat of the Valleys (Barcelona), some presumably harmful and negative aspects of Opus Dei were examined and discussed.”(5) The sensation of being labeled as a pernicious sect is soaking into Spanish public opinion to the extent that, in a survey of college students, the statistical results of which were broadcast o Channel1 of Spanish Television on 23 July 1990, during the second presentation of the news show Telediario, most of the interviewees said that they considered Opus Dei to be a “destructive cult.”(6) Two years earlier, the writer Vázquez Montalbán, in an article titled “The Opus Dei that Never Rests,” also said that “it should be enough that a television news program revealed some of the internal contradictions of Opus Dei, for example, the necessity that some of its members be deprogrammed as if they were members of cults outside of established Christianity, the news of which has disturbed the Catholic hierarchy.”(7) 4 Now we can explain better that recommendation from the 1983 pamphlet, Be Safe with Opus Dei, which referred to the initiatives and precautions that should be taken by North American high schools organizing trips by their students to Spanish universities, and which provided for them, before leaving for Spain, some rules and instructions on what they should eat or the foods from which they should abstain, the places of tourist or cultural interest they should visit, the locales they should avoid to prevent being robbed or attacked . but among those recommendations there were none warning them to be cautious of an organization called Opus Dei.(8) Ivon Le Vaillant, in his nonfiction book titled The Holy Mafia, published in México in 1985, tells us that when a celebrated Italian doctor, well-known in international psychoanalytical circles, was informed that the son of one of his patients had joined Opus Dei, he revealed that among his patients he had several that had obtained permission to leave Opus Dei and that these were all neurotics, commenting that "This is a crime. They were bewitched."(9) Concerning these people, the picture that this book paints for us is that "when they look straight ahead, with their eyes, you are surprised to notice they are not truly themselves, thaat they seem to live besides themselves, as if deprived of their own personalities. It is as if they were empty in body and soul, mere appendages of an all-absorbing organization: The Work: (Opus Dei, the Work of God).(10) It is the archtypical picture presented by people who are caught in the web of such a cult.

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